Isaac Feldberg
1) The Grand Budapest Hotel
I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing Wes Anderson’s latest and greatest cinematic confection twice now (theatrically and on Blu-Ray), so I’d encourage you to check out those reviews to get a more complete picture of my thoughts on The Grand Budapest Hotel. However, here I am giving you my best films from 2014 so far, and the fact that I’ve picked this extraordinary movie as my number one should say a lot.
Boasting absolutely decadent visuals, a sterling cast, a brilliant script and a deeply emotional center, The Grand Budapest Hotel is Anderson’s best movie to date, simply put. It’s certainly a masterpiece – whether it’s his only masterpiece remains to be seen. Every frame is stuffed with rich symmetry and peculiar sight gags, and every line of dialogue is both madcap and achingly poignant. It’s Anderson at his most idiosyncratic, but it’s also the director at his most personal and thoughtful.
The story, in which a young lobby boy (Tony Revolori) helps the witty concierge (Ralph Fiennes) of an iconic hotel in the wartorn nation of Zubrowka to clear his name of murder, is a series of delightfully whimsical escapades – but that’s not to say that it doesn’t leave an emotional impact as well. More than any of Anderson’s previous contraptions, The Grand Budapest Hotel fires with both cylinders on comedic and dramatic levels. There’s sweeping tragedy, gripping adventure, nutty characters only Anderson could conjure up, wonderfully imaginative visuals and a dazzling sense of scale – The Grand Budapest Hotel really has it all.
2) The Lego Movie
What can I say about The Lego Movie that its own theme song doesn’t say for itself? Everything is indeed awesome in this gloriously imaginative, immaculately animated ode to creativity. Let’s start with the voice cast – Chris Pratt brings a boyish sense of wonder to protagonist Emmet, Will Arnett delivers the goods as an overdramatic Batman, Elizabeth Banks nails every nuance of her fiery Wyldstyle, Alison Brie mines her bipolar Unikitty for every laugh, and Will Ferrell is a riot as the evil President Business, to name just a few.
The script, too, is a treasure trove of witticisms perfectly designed to appeal to kids and the adults in tow (who’ll find themselves just as enraptured by The Lego Movie as their little ones). Never sacrificing its giant, beating heart or remarkably upbeat spirit for the sake of a cheap laugh, The Lego Movie offers some of the sharpest writing you’ll see in a movie theatre this year – no joke. Thank Phil Lord and Chris Miller for understanding the unqualified joys of playing with Lego bricks and crafting a movie imaginative and original enough to be worthy of them. Thank also the animators, who succeeded in capturing the look and feel of Legos even as they built an entire universe out of them (the rolling Lego seas are a personal favorite).
Whether or not the already-greenlit sequels will live up to this insta-classic remains to be seen, but The Lego Movie is already the best animated movie of 2014 – and if it doesn’t take home Oscar gold at next year’s ceremony, I might have to construct my own Lego Academy Awards ceremony just to set things right.
3) Coherence
Like the better episodes of The Twilight Zone, Christopher Nolan’s Memento and Shane Carruth’s Primer before it, indie sci-fi Coherence is a brilliantly staged and sharply written mindscrew of a movie, one which stuck with me long after the credits had rolled. To describe most of its narrative would be a cinematic war crime on par with telling someone what was in the box in Se7en, so I won’t, but I can tell you that Coherence opens on eight friends who come together for a dinner party on the night of an astronomical anomaly – Miller’s Comet. The evening unfolds in a deeply unexpected fashion as the comet draws closer to Earth, influencing the friends in strange and dangerous ways.
For Coherence to dazzle me with its razor-sharp, thought-provoking script would have been enough – but in the hands of writer-director James Ward Byrkit, the movie possesses a giant, beating heart too. Unlike with Primer, I actually cared about its cast of characters – particularly dancer Em, played with grace and deep-rooted pathos by Emily Foxler, the closest thing that Coherence has to a protagonist. By combining heady sci-fi thrills with palpable emotion, Byrkit has delivered that rarest of films – one that makes you think and feel in equal measure.
4) Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Possibly the most marvelous film from Marvel yet, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is to its predecessor Captain America: The First Avenger what The Empire Strikes Back is to A New Hope – yes, I’m not kidding, it’s that much better. Both a thrill-a-minute action spectacle and a gripping political thriller, it’s the type of super-powered outing that makes every Iron Man 2 and Man of Steel worth it – one that blends breathtaking action with thoughtfully developed characters, a brainy story (not to mention one with real political heft) and an unmistakable heart.
Credit directors Joe and Anthony Russo, who inject The Winter Soldier with a shot of adrenaline, delivering many smooth, dynamic and eye-catching action sequences, and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, whose script is the finest to come out of a superhero movie since The Dark Knight. A stellar cast, including the stoic Chris Evans, the simply terrific Scarlett Johansson, a well-cast Robert Redford and an extremely pleasant surprise by the name of Anthony Mackie, just sweetens the deal. The Winter Soldier is the best superhero movie of 2014 (and I don’t see Guardians of the Galaxy changing that).
5) Palo Alto
It’s hard to pin down the essence of Palo Alto, the deeply affecting directorial debut of Gia Coppola. Centering on three troubled teens suffering from apathy and affluenza in the titular California suburb, it’s less about following a narrative and more about capturing certain feelings. Though the film is tranquil and dreamlike on the surface, what really sticks is the aura of dread and confusion surrounding all the characters. Coppola immediately establishes herself as a major talent with this debut; she and cinematographer Autumn Durald deliver some lovely, evocative cinematography, and the charged atmosphere is almost as remarkable as the performances.
Virginal and depressed April (Emma Roberts, doing the best work of her career thus far), aloof Teddy (Jack Kilmer, making one hell of a debut) and wounded bird Emily (Zoe Levin, quietly devastating) are the main players, but the out-of-control Fred (Nat Wolff, simply terrifying) also leaves a huge impact. Coppola takes a documentarian approach in recording their struggles, their shortcomings, their darkest moments – but, importantly, she never passes judgment, and one can tell that she feels for each and every one of them. There’s a beautiful, grim poetry to Palo Alto, as it almost effortlessly taps into the cultural zeitgeist to craft a small and crucial film about what it’s like to be a teenager finding yourself in the world. I’m convinced it’s worthy of mentioning in the same breath as teen classics like The Breakfast Club, Dazed and Confused and The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
